| Creating
Successful Portraits...
 When
photography first came onto the scene many artists thought it would
signal the death of painting, but the reality is that photography
plays a vital part in painting. Many artists paint from photographs
and this is where a projector can be of significant help too.
Some
artists mistakenly believe that using a projector is cheating. Nothing
could be further from the truth...
Painting
from photos is something all artists do but often it is the source
of much frustration - a process that sometimes takes many hours.
Most of this time is the preparation - drawing the subject in perspective,
proportion or the correct scale.
Some
of the Masters are believed to have used projector-like devices
to create some of their highly acclaimed masterpieces. After all,
the creativity of art is more abundantly displayed in the painting
– just because you have an accurate sketch doesn’t mean you can
produce a successful painting.
A
projector should be seen as a tool to help creativity rather than
hinder or diminish it.
Click
here to read other articles on how a projector can help you succeed
with your art
Take,
for example, this photograph of two pedigree
Irish Setters with
the girl.
This
is a standard 6”x4” photograph so the dogs’ heads are only about
1” high –
not much to work with in producing a good size painting.
Turning
to our Kopykake 300XK projector
we can enlarge the photograph until the dog’s head is the desired
size (we worked on one dog at a time). Of course, for this painting
we’re only interested in the dogs and the projector allows us to
disregard the girl in the photo.
Projecting
the image directly onto our watercolor paper we can determine where
to position the dog’s head for the best compositional interest;
we can also determine how much of the dogs’ neck and body we want
in the image.
For
this project we concentrated on the dog to the right of the picture
first. Enlarging the head to the desired size and position on the
paper. Then we set about drawing it – getting all the elements of
the dog’s head in the correct position and proportion. To do this
without the help of a projector (either by eye or by squaring off
the photo and the paper) would have taken at least 1-2 hours. With
a projector we managed it in about 10 minutes.
Then
we tackled the second dog. This is where the projector really
helped us get the proportion relative to the other dog absolutely
correct. Without a projector it would have been so easy to draw
this dog’s head too small or too large in comparison to the other.
With our 300XK projector we managed to get the image correctly sized
and positioned within about 10 minutes.
A
total of about 20 minutes to draw this sketch – how long would
it have taken without a projector?
And
how many times would we have attempted it before getting a sketch
we were happy with?
Consider
now the position you would be in as the artist who has created this
sketch.
The
next step is to paint it.
Imagine
you have drawn this sketch without a projector. Let’s say it took
you 2 hours to achieve a sketch you were happy with. Now you’ve
got to paint it. How confident are you going to be when putting
paint on to the paper? What happens if you make a mistake that ruins
the painting? You have to start all over again – that’s another
2 hours and you’ve still yet to paint.
No
wonder so many artists who don't use a projector give up in frustration!
But you don’t have to give up if you have a Kopykake projector
to help you.
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to buy a Projector Now?
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for more details about our six different Projectors! |
